- Put
down that iPhone, top Iranian government officials. Disavow your Droid and pull
out that old-school flip phone because your government is not taking any
chances. According to Gen. Gholam Reza Jalali, who heads an Iranian military
unit in charge of combatting sabotage, senior authorities with access to
classified information will be banned from using smartphones because of the
chance that they might text, Snapchat, Instagram or Facebook sensitive information
and set off the latest tech security scare for a country that has had plenty of
them. Jalali was quoted by the official government news agency as saying that
instructions for the ban have already been drawn up and await ratification,
claiming that the main danger is the possibility that smartphone manufacturers
— all of whom are based in Western countries — could have access to data stored
on the phones. Yes, Apple and Microsoft are secretly spying for the U.S.
government and hacking foreigners phones to gather data that will then be used
to put together the successor to the 2010 Stuxnet virus attack on Iran that disrupted
controls on some of its nuclear centrifuges. If all of this sounds a bit
paranoid, it obviously is and yet, not surprising at all for a country led by despotic,
dictatorial madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. On the plus side, friends and family
members of those top officials will now have a few less annoying selfies and
Snapchat messages to sift through on a daily basis and that’s never, ever an
objectionable development………
- Soccer
and racism. They’re like a perfectly married version of rancid peanut butter
and rotten jelly, with a dose of flopping and rioting mixed in. Even when you
think you’ve separated them, you find out that doing so is more impossible than
trying to go an entire match without at least one player taking a dive and
faking an injury as if he was shot by a sniper’s rifle. Enter Friday's Euro
2016 qualifier between Croatia and Italy, which ended in a 1-1 draw and was
played in front of an empty stadium due to previous racist incidents involving Croatian
fans. With no chance for hateful, racially intolerant bigots in the stands,
this one should have gone off without an unnecessary ugliness….right? Of course
not. While fans weren't allowed inside the stadium for the actual match, it
seems that at least one of two of these hatemongers managed to sneak in and
make their mark prior to the match. That fact became clear during the first
half of the match when someone spotted a
swastika etched into the pitch, clearly visible from the stands. While it
wasn’t immediately clear whether the Nazi symbol was mowed into the grass or
painted on top, groundskeepers rushed to cover it up during halftime. That
wasn’t enough for Italian Football Federation (FIGC) officials, who had to know
the symbol had no bearing on the outcome of the match but still tried to use it
as an excuse for not winning, filing an official complaint with Euro 2016
officials. Croatian Football Association President Davor Suker refused to
discuss the incident after the match, but said it would be investigated in the
next few days. The good news is that by the time Croatia figures out who did
this, the world will have already have made its mind up on this one, stopped
paying attention and no longer be paying attention anyhow……..
- It’s
a concoction so dietarily revolting that it just has to be American…but it isn't.
It is the dausage, the unholy marriage of two wholly over-caloried breakfast
foods that far too many Americans shove down their pie holes on a daily basis. The
half donut, half sausage hybrid is the brainchild of Wales-based Web developer
Liam Bennett, but don’t let the fact that a resident of the United Kingdom came
up with it distract you from the reality that this is an American food item at
heart. There are several different varieties of dausage, including ones filled
with raspberry jelly and, nauseatingly, custard. "I was trying to think
what else you could mix with a donut," Bennett said. "I was looking
at things that go well with sweet things, duck with plum sauce. I thought I'd
give the sausage a go because, well I eat sausages." Oh, ok. That makes
perfect sense. As with all revolutionary thinkers, Bennett says the reaction to
his dausages was doubtful at first. However, once people actually started
trying them, he claims that they were won over. "Everyone thought it was crazy to be honest. But when they tried it
they loved it. And so did I, I thought
it was a great taste,” Bennett added. His initial plan is to make dausages by
hand to sell at food fairs, but
in the long run he wants to raise funds via a Kickstarter to build the world's first dausage machine. He’s
experimenting with additional fillings as he goes, such as apple sauce with pork and mint with lamb, but said
he wants to find something more original and unique. As for when and where to
eat a dausage….it doesn’t matter, Bennett said. "I think it's
multifunctional, we've had them at barbecues, hot dogs and things. You can have
them with chips, with breakfast, with anything,” he concluded………..
- Much
like the points on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?,” the lineup for Smashing Pumpkins
is largely made-up an irrelevant at this point. Billy Corgan has swapped out
drummers, bassists and guitarists so often that it’s pointless trying to keep
up with who or isn't playing alongside the pompous, self-aggrandizing rocker,
even if the music has remained largely consistent. The latest change came down
this week with news that the Pumpkins' live shows will no longer feature Rage
Against The Machine's Brad Wilk and The Killers' Mark Stoermer. The pair had
been playing with the group since last year, but their time is done and going forward,
Pumpkins shows will feature a new line-up with Robin Diaz and Katie Cole. Diaz
is a drummer who has played with constant attention whore and Kurt Cobain
legacy gravy-trainer Courtney Love, Chris Cornell and One Direction. Cole will
play bass for the Pumpkins and has been a support act for Corgan in the past. Even
with the two lineup changes, Corgan is still contending with rumors that he may
disband the group after his next album. "I think the new album we're
making is very exciting. It's very futuristic,” Corgan said. “I've basically said that Smashing Pumpkins
dies when I die, and maybe not even then. Maybe my niece will take over the
franchise when I'm dead." All right, then. "Kiss is already talking
about continuing past Gene and Paul, so why not the Smashing Pumpkins beyond
William Patrick Corgan?” he added. “We live in an era when everything is alive
and everything is dead at the same time." How very existential and über-pompous
of you, referring to yourself in the third person and suggesting that your band
can transcend space and time……..
No comments:
Post a Comment